Mussina's new approach nets a familiar result

NEW YORK -- From a few feet away, the guy wearing blue jeans and white sneakers looked at peace.

He was speaking of doubt, of getting older, of reinventing himself because not doing so would have been career suicide. Strands of gray peppered his sideburns.

He sounded happy.

Inside the Yankees clubhouse, in the twilight of his career, Mike Mussina retraced his road back after the Yankees' 6-1 win over the Seattle Mariners at Yankee Stadium yesterday.

"I had a tough year last year. That's the truth of it," said Mussina, who allowed one run over six innings to pick up his third consecutive victory and improve to 4-3. "I just wanted to come out this year and probably prove to myself that I can still be competitive at this level, that I can still do what I've been doing for all these years."

Mussina talked about the injury-ridden season that pushed him to the brink last year. A nagging hamstring injury raised questions in his mind about whether his career was coming to an end.

"When you have a bad year, you don't know what's going to happen the next year," he continued. "When you start getting up there in your 30s, you're not sure what's going to happen. I didn't know if all that stuff that happened to me last year was going to linger, carry over or cause any residual problems. ... I didn't know."

At 39, Mussina was guaranteed nothing. The doubts resurfaced and the questions -- including some from Yankees co-chairperson Hank Steinbrenner -- grew louder after Mussina sputtered out of the gate this season.

"He had a tough month and he's rebounded very well from it," said Yankees manager Joe Girardi, whose team improved to 16-16 after winning the first two games of the weekend series. "You don't win over 250 games by accident. As you get older, you have to make adjustments and Moose has been good with that."

Somewhere along the way, Mussina changed. He started to slowly reinvent himself.

"I know the ball's not going to come out of my hand going 93 (mph) ever again, so I have to pitch with what I have," said Mussina, who scattered seven hits, struck out five and did not issue a walk. "You can try to be the pitcher you were and you'll be out of the game. Or you can adjust and try to hang in there."

Mussina had plenty of help from an offense that had struggled for most of the week. Johnny Damon went 3-for-5 with a home run, two doubles and three runs scored to spearhead a Yankees attack that roughed up Seattle right-hander Felix Hernandez (2-2), who labored in his shortest stint of the season. The hard-throwing Hernandez gave up six runs on 12 hits in 5 2/3 innings.

The Yankees wasted little time jumping on Hernandez in the first inning thanks to Bobby Abreu's RBI single that scored Damon, who led off the game with a double. Mussina gave up his only run on Ichiro Suzuki's two-out RBI single in the third.

Girardi's club answered with three runs in the home half of the third. Hernandez gave up back-to-back doubles to Damon and Derek Jeter to break the tie. Hideki Matsui poked a two-out single down the third-base line to score Jeter and give the Yankees a two-run edge.

After a Jason Giambi walk, Melky Cabrera ripped a first-pitch fastball to center to score Matsui and extend the Yankees lead to 4-1.

Damon's sixth-inning, two-run blast into the upper deck in right field was more than enough support for Mussina.

The veteran right-hander kept Seattle off balance by effectively changing speeds and working both sides of the plate.

"If you play that long, the injuries are going to get you sooner or later," Mussina said. "There's a lot of talent here. Why am I still pitching at 39 years old?"